The Nintendo Switch Online service will be launching in September and short of what little we know about it, not much more has been said on what will be coming with this service. Media Site Waypoint recently spoke with Nintendo Of America COO Reggie Fils-Aime and asked if he could divulge more on the Nintendo Online Service. What benefit will users of the service receive after they subscribe to the service over what they have already been getting for free?
You will get the ability to cloud save your content. And so for those consumers that are concerned about saves, you know, we’ve now provided a method to address that.
Secondly, you’re going to get access to some legacy content. And we’ve said that we’re going to start with 20 games that are going to be available. We’ve outlined the first 10. And so that’s the other benefit that you’re going to get as part of Nintendo Switch Online.
What I would say is that we’ve got a number of months until the service launches. We’ll continue to provide detail as we go. Right now the message is that it’s launching in September. Fundamentally there are three elements to the service: connected play, the cloud saves, and the legacy content. We’re going to continue providing more details as we get.
Nintendo’s plans on handling legacy content via the Nintendo Switch Online service certainly look as the company os moving on from the Virtual Console and trying a different approach with classic games. Reggie didn’t specify on how they would continue to distribute their rich expansive game library via Nintendo Switch Online.
What I would tell you is that we know that Nintendo has a deep and rich library. We know that consumers enjoy playing those legacy games. And we also know that we’ve done a lot in making that content available. Whether it’s the work we’ve done on past platforms, whether it’s what we’ve done with micro-consoles in the NES Classic and SNES classic.
For us, it’s really about being thoughtful around what’s the best way to enable consumers to have access to this content and to do it in a meaningful way. We think the work that we’re doing with the Nintendo Switch Online is one way to address that opportunity.
September is slowly but ever surely approaching us and pretty soon, we will have to pay for online play on Nintendo Switch. On the plus side, we will finally have cloud saves, some free games every month and with any luck, improved online play that doesn’t drop you out during a tough match. With any luck, maybe we will finally see some Gamecube games make their way into the Switch Online service.
Source: Waypoint
